Electric storage batteries are commercially available in a wide range of sizes for use in a variety of applications. As battery technology continues to improve, batteries find new applications that impose increasingly stringent specifications relating to physical size and performance. New technologies have yielded smaller and lighter weight batteries having longer storage lives and higher energy output capabilities enabling an increasing range of applications, including medical applications, where, for example, the battery can be used in a medical device that is implanted in a patient's body. Such medical devices can be used to monitor and/or treat various medical conditions. Batteries for implantable medical devices are subject to very demanding requirements, including long useful life, high power output, low self-discharge rates, compact size, high reliability over a long time period, and compatibility with the patient's internal body chemistry.